The Self and Confucianism 

by Arthur Dobrin 

A teacher once asked her students, "What is the  most important religious
question?"  

One student said, "Does God exist?", 

"Who is God?" another asked.  

The third responded, "What is the path of  God?"  

"Is there life after death?" another wanted to  know.  

"No," the teacher replied to each. "The most important question is, 'Who
am I?'" 

This anecdote may seem lifted straight from a guide to New Age religion
with its emphasis upon the self.  Such a question can easily lead down the
path of self-indulgence, quietism and personal salvation indifferent to
the fate of the larger community. But when "Who am I?" is answered from a
non-western perspective, the question leads to answers of ever-deepening
revelations. 

Most religions in the West ask their adherents to consider the nature of
God and what God wants of them. The three great religions of China -
Confucianism, Taosim and Buddhism - start not with God but with people.
"Who am I?" becomes the essential spiritual question. That spirituality is
closer to religious humanism than to theistic religions. 

Humanism, whether religious or secular, starts from the position that this
is the only life we can be certain of and therefore we had better use it
wisely, for there may not be any other.  Once supernatural concerns have
been set aside, matters regarding the nature of God become secondary to
issues concerning how to live our lives on this planet. Religious
questions are no longer God-centered but Earth-centered. 

Of course, all religions at their best turn people back to living life in
the here and now, but for Confucianism in particular, it is the only way
to live. "Who am I?" becomes, "Who am I, this one person amongst a
billion, this one individual in a long line who has come before, this one
creature amongst thousands of other species?  What do I need to do to live
my life with purpose? What must I do in order to be happy?  How do I best
relate to the human community and the world in which I live?" 

Traditionally religion in the West has its sights set on God.  The natural
world conforms to the God-given.  To know God is to know the human
condition.  Here theology (the knowledge of God) is an intellectual
pursuit. Having laid aside the pursuit of knowledge of God, humanists are
left with matters of anthropology (the knowledge of the human).For a
person from the Confucianist/Taoist/Buddhist tradition, the question, Who
am I? is inseparable from a related question, namely, What does it mean to
be human? By understanding the most basic of life's questions this way
leads to answering the question very differently than it is often answered
in more conventional religious circles.  For that person the spiritual
pursuit isn't the quest of a solitary individual but of a social being. 
To be human makes sense only when we understand that to be human means to
be part of the natural and human community. 

Tu Wei-Ming, in Confucian Thought: Selfhood As Creative Transformation
(Ref.1), explains the moral universe of East Asia when he writes that
self-knowledge "that is concerned with truly personal experience is not at
all private to the individual; self-knowledge is a form of inner
experience precisely because it resonates with the inner experiences of
others.  Accordingly, internality is not a solipsistic state but a
concrete basis of communication." 

The most common approach to spirituality in the modern world is framed in
individualistic terms. The unstated assumption of the western world is
that the universe begins and ends with the individual and because each
person undeniably experiences the world in his or her own uniqueness, each
is utterly different from other human beings.  This individualistic turn
of thought, which can be traced back through Christianity's emphasis upon
personal salvation, is expressed through the endless line of self-help
books and the unquestioned assumptions of therapeutic psycho-talk.  It is
an expression in the increasing turning inward towards culture and away
from politics; it is entertainment in place of community.  Of course
football games begin with prayers and religious revivals are held in
stadiums; of course mega-church services and concerts are nearly
indistinguishable. However, underneath this negation of community is
another current. The latest work in the fields of biology, psychology,
anthropology and sociology all points to the same direction. Human beings
are social creatures by nature, at once like other higher order animals
but different. We also know that we, each of us, are at once like every
other human being but at the same time distinctively and uniquely like no
other. 

Christian fundamentalists often say that if humans are part of a long
chain of evolution so that we are cousins to the apes, then we are
reducible to the apes. There is no logical reason why this is so. To know
that one thing comes from another is not to say that one thing is the
other. We all issue from our parents. While we are like them in many
respects, we are also not like them in other ways. So too with our place
in the natural world.  But once having said that we are part of the
natural world, we assume certain responsibilities to it, just as we have
certain obligations in regard to our parents. Acknowledging this
connection to the natural world brings to many, me included, a sense of
belonging that issues from relatedness. I am not an alien in this world; I
am part of the world. The deeper I contemplate my place in the natural
universe the more humble I become, the more respectful I become, the more
I experience the sense of awe and at-oneness that the more traditionally
inclined call the religious experience.